Computer skills

[Tainbri]

Bit of a random question but out of interest can your dc work Word? I was a bit surprised when a note came home today saying that over the summer dc really needs to get to grips with the package and I need to sit down and teach him (everything from saving documents to changing the font) he is 11 and whilst he not really "into" computers, I kind of assumed school would be teaching him this or have you as a parent taught your dc and I have failed miserably?

At my ds's school, I think they taught basic Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in KS1. Ds was using it without any help since YR1.

Unfortunately, ICT skills as in using packages has largely been removed from the curriculum at the requestion of Michael Gove. Now, students must cover computational thinking, algorithms, programming, networking etc.
I one hour a week (sometime a lot less) we are supposed to juggle this with actually using a Computer. We just don't have time to teach them how to 'click on this' etc.
I also have three current Year 7s who had never used a Desktop as their Primary had only used Tablets and they never had one at home. So I then had to take time out of there lesson to teach them to use a mouse (quick double clicking was a challenge!) and I think it is only going to get worse as we just don't have the time and have to teach Computer Science instead.

The Govt. thinks digital skills come naturally to the next generation and therefore we don't need to teach it. We tried fighting it but got nowhere.

Therefore, no, I don't think you can expect your DC's school to teach them these packages.

Gosh Kitty! This explains all!! For years everyone has said things like aren't you lucky ds prefers to be kicking a ball about, climbing a tree and not stuck on the computer. Screen time is so not an issue in our house, yet now I'm feeling helpless as it's come to smack him in the chops!

Don't feel helpless-he'll be fine! Just maybe has to spend an hour or two over the summer holidays, clicking on things in Word to see what they do, to help him with future essays and reports etc.

By the way, apologies to the mistakes in my first post-don't know where 'requestion' came from or 'there'!!

I think children pick it up really quickly.
A few hours together (in chunks) and then let him do stuff on his own to find his way around.

Yes thanks, I will definitely spend some time now that I know. I feel a bit shocked really that it all seems to have slipped through the net. He genuinely has zero interest in computers at home and I've taken no particular notice because I thought it's better to be outside doing sport and things, and just assumed he'd be picking up the computer skills at school. I can see we're going to have to do some projects and things over the summer!